


The Star We Call Sun

by Madiholmes



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Gen, Skating, USSR, victor nikiforov - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-09-09 21:11:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8912095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Madiholmes/pseuds/Madiholmes
Summary: Little Victor Nikiforov must make his way through the new times while understanding the complexities of the old. His childhood and future career is built on the ruins of a dead government and ideology, but one that still has power over his life and choices.





	1. 1989

1989

 

The birthing process was hard.

 

Avdotya was weeks early. False contractions had plagued her for days as old women gathered around her bed, offering advice, tea, whispers of encouraging chastisement to keep her legs together, to keep off her feet, to stay steady as the baby wriggled and kicked- unwilling to keep still. They scolded the infant, still in the womb, for being impatient, to enjoy his freedom from the cold as much as he could.

 

Dotya woke at three AM, knowing as all women know. Turning on lights, she woke up the entire apartment, uncaring of her brother David asleep on the couch or his early morning shift, uncaring of anyone else but her own turn. 

 

Aunt Vasilisa had woken first, shifting even before her niece was fully aware. She had been hardened by her own Russian history, and even this emergency kept her stern as she got the mother on her feet, standing up against protests of pain and bleeding. There was no kindness to had, only survival against the agonies of a milk soured pregnancy.

 

Bundled up, Dotya was slowly making her way down the stairwell as David ran to find the nearest working phone. It was a bitterly cold December morning, and even Aunt Vasilisa knew that she wouldn’t survive the eight block walk to the hospital. They made their way down to the foyer, icy from lack of heating, but still warmer than a night too cold to even snow.

 

Other apartments woke up in the wake of David’s banging for a phone, some yelling back, cursing the hour, others stayed fiercely silent, refusing to answer for any reason. The old women creeping out from their rooms, shadowing the pregnant woman and her caretaker in a protective wreath as a siren finally pierced against the death of night. 

 

Two police officers showed up first, uncharacteristically nervous at such a group by the front door until they saw Dotya and her blood soaked clothes. Relaxing, they let the old women dote, keeping her awake, keeping her focused. Just as quickly as the apartment block had lit up, every light flipped off immediately, curtains slid in place against the police presence.

 

An ambulance turned the corner sharp, pulling up to the front steps. Its wheels slid inches in the compacted ice as Aunt Vasilia guided the pregnant woman down steps weighted down with muddy ice.

 

The ambulance crew jumped out of the cabin just as a 1970s Lada sledded up next to it, almost side swiping off the side mirror. The ambulance crew got out, running up toward the woman just as David emerged from the car.

 

“Davey Bowie, What did you do??” Dotya whispered, horrified as the police officers peered down at her brother.

 

“I was going to take you to the hospital.” He replied, more to the police than to her. 

 

“This isn’t your car,” the first officer stated.

 

“Please, Sir.” Aunt Vasilisa said lowly, the first hint of breaking in over forty years. “He was trying to save his sister.”

 

“He still stole this car,” the second one replied, sternly, “and he broke the window. There is nothing else to it.”

 

“You must understand,” Aunt Vasilisa finally replied, before the officer shot her a hard look. “He is impulsive and cares only for his sister.”

 

“But even we cannot allow impulsive boys to steal cars. Especially when there are ambulances.” He argued back, watching the woman war against her own in her own heart. “Little mother,” he finally said. “Let us take you to the hospital. You can ride with your idiot nephew, but we cannot just let him go.”

 

Aunt Vasilisa startled at the kindness, agreeing to voluntarily leave with Soviet police in the dead of night. Her past fifty years somehow forgotten in the emergency.

 

Dotya was lowered onto a stretcher, losing focus of the situation as she watched in losing concentration of her brother’s arrest as she was being wheeledtfh back into the cold ambulance.

 

-

 

The doctors rushed her into the back, keeping her in the twilight of drugs against the pain and fear.  Aunt Vasilisa was there, rushing between the waiting room and where Dotya was waiting for her doctor. “They might have to do surgery,”  Aunt Vasilisa murmured. “The baby is in good position, but they are not certain.”

 

“How is he?” Dotya asked, counting cracks in the ceiling. “Still kicking? Even now? I do not know where he gets this energy.”

 

“He is a strong Nikiforov. He is a survivor as we all are.”

 

Dotya agreed, nodding. “Any word?” she asked, “Of Davey?”

 

Aunt Vasilisa held her fingers to her lips. “He is fine. We will sort it out,” not quite lying.

 

“Good. He is my brother. The prince of idiots. But my brother.”

 

“Hush, Dotya. You must prepare yourself.”  Aunt Vasilisa quieted her again as the nurses came in with a surgical gurney, tending to her as they slid her over, and wheeled her out for the surgery.

 

Aunt Vasilisa was alone in the world. The first time in forty years. It was finally her time to break, silent and without notice.

 

-

 

The baby was too young, too tender. Dotya was too out of it to notice. He was whisked away for further tests as she drowsed awake to a missing infant and her side stitched up without pain.

 

“The boy is fine. Strong, but fragile. He will never play hockey,” she prophesied in the old womanly ways.

 

“I wanted to name him David.” Dotya sighed, already knowing the loss.

 

Aunt Vasilisa shook her head. “Not now. Perhaps with a younger brother.”

 

“I know.”

 

“Yes, you are my niece. We are of the same stock.” the older woman sighed, wiping the mother’s forehead with a handkerchief. “David is a good name, but Uncle David is too much right now. That baby has too much to deal with right now without his uncle’s crimes to be burdened with.”

 

“His name is Victor Constantinovich Nikiforov.”

 

“Is it now?!”  Aunt Vasilisa stated. “A strong name indeed. Cousin Victor would have been pleased. Even if the baby won’t play hockey, it is still a fine namesake.”

 

“Well, yes. After Cousin Victor, but also after Victor Tsoi. Kino is one of my favorite bands.”

 

“Tch. You and your rock bands. You’re almost as bad as David. Going to get us all arrested this night. I blame your father. David was never the same after that concert in 1973. Going to be a rock star, you calling him Davey Bowie. It’s not right. This baby is minutes old, and already being corrupted by the indulgences of the west. Victor Nikiforov, indeed. Hockey and rock and roll. An awkward birthright. And here I thought you were of my bloodline.”

 

“Can I see the baby?”

 

“Soon. But rest. I’ll ask.”

 

The old woman lumbered her way back from the patient barracks to the medical station, pulling a nurse out from the desk.

 

“She is fine,” the nurse growled, checking pulse and the post surgical bandages. “I have ten other patients, and you bring me over for this.”

 

Aunt Vasilisa’s eyes narrowed, simmering to a fight when another nurse approached, nervous. “Have you heard?”

 

“What?” the older woman asked, scared at the tone, for her niece. And nephew.

 

“General Ceaușescu and his wife have been shot!” She whispered overly loud. “Romania is in chaos. Thousands are out in the streets.”

 

“When!?” the first nurse asked, looking around at the other patients, seeing if any were peering back at her.

 

“Today! The news is all over the place.”

 

Aunt Vasilisa’s anger boiled over. Dotya put a hand out onto her elbow, interrupted loudly, “I haven’t cared about who’s been shot since Lennon! Now give me my baby!”

 

“Lenin wasn’t shot?” the nurse questioned, her world and history swirling out from under her. 

 

“You heard her. That baby isn’t that tired. He was up all night. He can sleep later after this personal Potemkin.” Aunt Vasilisa ordered, changing the subject completely from prying ears and eyes, shushing away the nurses out of hearing, checked the neighboring beds for more prying ears. “I fear we are in for different times. Hearing this news this fast? My nephew David might have all of the luck in him yet.”

 

The nurse trudged back to the women with a bassinet, placing the newborn onto her mother’s chest. He woke up, angry, but softened, embracing the heat from his mother’s breasts. His eyes looked up at her with round seafoam green eyes and grey hair, an old man trapped in a newborn body. Peered over at his great aunt, not quite able to see their faces.

 

“But I suspect Grand Nephew Victor will have even more. Luck, strength, and intelligence. He, out of us all, will be quite ready for these different times indeed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The title comes from the Soviet band Kino's song called "The Star Called Sun" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1jmmHB3K69A
> 
> The lead singer of Kino was Viktor Tsoi who was Soviet Kazakh-Korean, and would go on to die in 1990 from a car crash. 
> 
> I partially co-opted Victor's name from (and not just the hockey player). Dotya and David are from that last Soviet generation of cool kid dissenters where rock and political rebellion combined during the 80s.


	2. 1991

1991

 

The streets were swamped with people. Dotya felt one with them as she quickly dressed, dug out her warmest jeans and long johns, nose ring, boots, coat, and Sex Pistols shirt. It was still tight after Victor’s birth, but she scrunched it over her breasts, hitched the pants a little higher with a belt. Victor was already bundled up in his overcoat, growing red from the heat.

 

“You’re not going, and you’re not taking that baby with you!!” Great Aunt Vasilia cowered from the stairwell.

 

“I’m not missing the greatest party in fifty years! We’re all free now! Gorbachev is gone!”

 

“Freedom? This isn’t freedom,” The older woman spat. “This is more of the same! They will come out with tanks and soldiers, and round up everyone, and take them to Siberia. You and the baby are no better than everyone else. Victor will die in a labor camp, and you’ll follow soon after.”

 

“My son will be out there with me. We won’t live in subjugation anymore. I’m raising him to make his own choices. Nobody will ever tell him what to do except me. And you. I mean, we can’t let him be a brat…. Why is it so hard to be a parent and a revolutionary?!”

 

Great Aunt Vasilisa rolled her eyes, confronted her niece from the hallway. “Now you decide to be a good Soviet. Putting your political entertainment over your own son’s safety.” Paused, took them both in ready to leave. She finally said. “Don’t go out into that.”

 

Dotya sat on the couch, looking at the icy crowds. “We’ll be okay. I want Victor to see all of this. He will never have a better birthday gift,” smiled at her son.


	3. 1992

1992

 

Dotya needed a break. The boy was everywhere, dancing, jumping, running around her sopping laundry trying to dry. She needed five minutes for a nap, and then she’d be good for the next six months.

Aunt Vasilisa doted on him, her dormant emotions rekindling on a baby, encouraging his behavior as she explored her new freedom through him.

But Dotya needed to focus on herself as an adult outside of being a mother or niece. It would come later, she realized as chased Victor down, but having to pick one role was better than trying to fill both as she lugged her son to the dinner table. 

She wrestled the toddler to the floor, tickling him until he was gasping, then slid on his winter clothes, pinning them on with diaper pins so he couldn’t wriggle out of them. Slipping on her own jacket, she hoisted him onto her hip, left a note, and went out into the cold. Victor got quiet as she hailed down a cab, the two slipping into the back seat. The baby stood against the window, peering at everything. Dotya lit a cigarette, cracked a window, and exhaled tarry smoke halfway outside.

She paid off the taxi as they pulled up to the arena, and entered through the large iron doors. 

Dotya entered the arena from her childhood, Victor toddling next to her. The enjoyment of her youth had slipped away as she got more into boys, music, and international geopolitics, but she had come to miss the free skate times with her brother. He had been naturally gifted as a skater, but a broken femur had ended whatever might have been.

Walking under the entrance doors, she saw the new Russian flags flying from wall mounts, smaller than their hammer and sickle counterparts, a rectangle of white cinder blocks protected against twenty years of yellowing rot. It was small things that she missed, not the actual flags themselves, but the nostalgia of them being there when she was a child.

Checking out two pairs of skates, she corralled Victor onto a bench, and slipped on the right, then the left. Tightened them as much as possible, then loosened them just enough to not be painful. Victor was silent for once, peering down at the blades as she warned him not to touch them- that they were sharp as knives. He took it in, not scared, but watching the others out on the ice through the gate entrance.

Sat back against the lockers, and started on her own, closed her eyes for a second between tugging on the second and third hooks.

“Looks like we might have a mouse or a rat. Hard to say.”

Dotya jerked awake. “A rodent?” she squeaked at the short man above her.

He motioned her upward, pointed out into the ice. “Mice or rats. Little toddlers with great promise at skating. He’s what? Two? Already trying to do spins.”

“My son is not a rodent!” Dotya exclaimed, lugging away from the stranger, trying to get out onto the ice to catch her son.

“No, watch,” The man replied, grabbing onto her arm without pain, making her pay attention.

Victor was fearless, skating around children twice his age, sometimes faster, sometimes slowing to some quiet song in his head. He had rhythm, unconsciously shifting between his left foot then his right foot in time. Panting, he slid into a backboard, fell onto his butt in a quiet corner, and started watching girls twirl about, doing quick rabbit hops.

“There are many rats- children with some ability, but lack the spark of genius. Figure skating is loaded with them. Expensive rats who clog the scoring system. But mice? They are the rare ones who win Olympic medals. I can see something in him. He wants to jump and spin. Even at that age.” Victor stood back up, bracing himself against the wall with one hand as he crouched down on his skates and put one foot out. “His feet are twitching as that girl in the lavender coat does a sit spin. He’s already processing it. Wrongly, of course. But it’s there. First time on the ice as well. If I were to guess.”

“Victor is not a rodent.”

“Perhaps. Things are changing. So far, I’ve only seen one other with potential in the past three years. Nobody wants to waste their time on ice skating children. In the past, it was never a question- they would be volunteered by the government. But now? I suppose I must graciously ask for permission. I don’t know if he’s a rat or a mouse either, and money and resources are much harder to come by. Bring him back tomorrow at eight AM, and we’ll work with him. See how he really is.”

“I’ll never bring him here again. Not to you,” Dotya threatened. Both ignored the lie.

“Eight AM. Then we’ll do some small stretching and gymnastics after he’s proven himself. Tell the coach that Nikita Zhuk sent Little Victor.”

Dotya slipped away from the man onto the ice, racing up to her son, and plucking him up. Startled, he looked up at her as she scolded him for being bad and skating without her. He took it all in, wriggled down from her grasp, and took off again. Jumped, and fell flat on his face.

Dotya power slid on her knees next to her son as he looked up, blinking in pain and blood. His chin was cut open, his eyes tearing up, but not making a sound. She scooped him back up, and brought him to the bench as a medical attendant approached with a first aid kit, dabbing away the blood with a cloth.

“Do you want to skate again?” Zhuk asked the boy from a distance. Dotya glared at him, tending to her son, fought the desire to punch the man.

Victor looked at his mother, then the stranger. Nodded a little as the pain took hold, and he started to cry low gasps.

“Very good, little mouse. Your mother will bring you often.”


	4. 1993

1993

The line spiraled down the block, blocking traffic and alleys.

Dotya was exhausted, dreaming of the illicit records from her childhood. Now they were everywhere- free from censorship and flooding the city. Twelve year olds with larger collections than she’d managed to collect in a lifetime. They were nothing to them. Freedom of the innocent.

But bread lines? These were the memories of her aunt. Hunger and freedom was still hunger.

She shifted, readjusted the three year old onto her back hip as she opened the book. The sun had dawned without heat, but gave enough light to pass the time.

Gotten up at 5 AM for the bread delivery, cursing her alarm clock. Another hour wound its way as the line shortened, then lagged. Groaning, Dotya started to walk away, knowing that the supply had run out before an announcement. Lines, however, were to be held until invasion or real information. Whichever came first. She turned the page.

Victor started kicking slightly, a year older, more curious, less prone to obeying.

“Avdotya Nikiforova.”

Dotya looked back at the grocery store. The clerk was shooing her over one-handed.

“Yes, Tanya?” She asked back, spying the crowd.

“There’s someone here to see you. He’s in the back now.”

“I don’t know anyone,” Dotya shut down, clutching Victor tighter as she huddled in her line. 

“His last name is Jones.”

The woman snapped back, almost dropping her toddler into the snow as she twisted towards the store. “I’ve known you a long time, Tanya. Are you shitting with me?”

“No. He’s in the back.”

An ever calculating person, Dotya thought back over the past eighteen months, countered the new ways with the old. Went inside.

“Look out you Rock and Rollers.”

“Turn and face the strange.” Dotya replied under her breath. Turned slowly toward the vegetable section.

David.

Changed forever during incarceration, but still held the look of a loyal Soviet dissident. Hair shaved and gaunt, he held himself against himself, smiling his heart shaped mouth.

“How!? What?” Dotya crushed her brother in a massive hug, squeezing Victor between the two of them until she could rearrange him to her other hip. “We have to tell Aunt Vasilisa! She’ll break out all of of our vodka!”

“All of the vodka?? Did we win the war again?!!” David laughed in mock horror, shifted away. “Turns out stealing the local party leader’s stupid Lada was a good thing. I got released with other political prisoners for time served. Was labelled a political prisoner instead of simple car jacker. They catch me on on that, but not the real stuff we did. The Soviet system truly was doomed to fail.”

Tears welled down her face as she collapsed against a wall. Victor squawking as his foot was smashed between rib and plaster. Horrified, his mother sat forward, slinging his body around hers, begging for forgiveness as the boy cried out his pain.

David fell in a comical heap next to them, pulled the boy’s leg into his hands and started rubbing away the hurt. “There’s my little criminal compatriot. No more car thefts, though. And you owe me. I saved your life. That’s a blood oath. And on the day you were born. You’ll be owing everyone blood oaths in this town at that rate. Tell you what, Little Compatriot, you can help me with my new job. You’ll be my top model.”

“What does that mean?” Avdotya asked, not wanting to know the answer.

“I’ve got a job, Dotya. I’m going to save enough money, and then I’m going to America. I’ll send you everything. I’ll eat and work, then send for you. Aunt Vasilia can find her own ticket. Here!” He pulled out a money clip, flicked out several bills, then slid it back in.

Dotya blinked at the cash, then at her brother.

“Job pays well. And I get all the Levis I want,” David laughed, pulled the baby into his arms. “I’ll be a regular Bruce Springsteen!”

“No.” the woman said firmly. “Not like this.”

“Feed Vitya. Eat something yourself. You look like Karen Carpenter. Get more vodka for Aunt Vasilisa. Tonya will provide everything.”

“No.”

“It’s a new Russia, Dotya. Lennon is dead.”

Dotya took the money, slipped it in her pocket, led her brother back to their apartment.

“No.”

Gave the money back much later after Aunt Vasilisa had cracked under the loss of her father, an uncle, three brothers, and finally the return of her nephew. Shedding alcoholic tears long locked down by a repressive regime.


	5. 1994

1994

Victor started skating. He’d begged for two weeks to go back until he’d been distracted by books and puzzles. Dotya found a secretarial job with the local power company. Aunt Vasilisa and David had moved on with their lives away from her, their communal oppression had ironed them together, and each was finding themselves apart more often than not. 

 

Victor was growing- still undersized, but smart and agile. Preschool started for him, and he took to it well. He learned quickly, made friends, but was always aloof. Nobody disliked him, but he got along with everyone so well that he often faded into the back behind stronger kids.

Forgotten the man and barely remembering Victor’s split chin, she took him back to the ice rink for a preschool outing. The toddlers were all lined up as she got him back into skates, then helped two more parents boot their children. The boy sat patiently, clinking his blades together until his mother got him up and out onto the rink with the rest of the children. She taught them a few tricks- how to stop, how to sit down, as the preschool teachers corralled the others into small groups. Her group was already doing slow snowplow stops by the time the rest were just standing up and away from the boards. 

Victor was ahead of everyone, even faster than Dotya had predicted, and started to meander around a bit. Losing interest in the repetitive maneuvers, he slowly skated one way, then other, joining a different group when his mother was distracted with a girl.

This group was different. They weren’t his classmates, but still young enough for him not to register them. Most were bigger by a year or even two, and watched as the skating coach showed them forward and backward strokes with correct posture. The boy took it in, moved his feet left and right on the ice, mimicking the teacher. Soon he got up with the others, and started doing small forward strokes. He’d not quite managed it, then felt people looking at him. 

“What’s your name, Junge?” The coach asked.

Victor looked down at his feet, then for his mother.

“I’m Mikhail,” a boy told him, smiling brightly behind curly red locks. “Are you in this class?”

“Mm Victor.” He finally replied.

“He said his name is Victor,” Mikhail told the coach. “And he is in our class now. He’s very good. I like him a lot.”

The coach grimaced, then relented, interested in how far the boy could keep up with the class. Dotya had noticed by then, but had held back herself from interfering, her own curiosity even more. They both observed the boy’s abilities and weaknesses as the two hours passed from their own coaching perspectives. She knew she’d been wrong to not bring him back, but had been right in letting him grow a bit more, have his own time to explore and be a child before being thrown into the ice skating world. Even three going on four was too young to make that level of lifestyle commitment, but the talent was there and even an inkling of ambition in his blue eyes. He wanted to be there, in his silent aloofness, more than he’d ever wanted anything in his life. He decided, and Dotya went along with it. But she wasn’t going to let Victor be a victim of the Soviet figure skating federation. He was going to be Russian, and be able to say yes or no during training.

“He’s my best friend. He’ll win silver and I’ll win gold.”


	6. 1995

1995

 

“I’m quitting skating. I want to play more.” Victor told his mother and great-aunt at dinner. He had dark circles under his eyes, dragged his feet to the table.

“Okay,” Dotya shrugged, turned back to her newspaper.

Victor frowned, his eyes squinting in frustration. “You don’t want me to skate?”

“I want you to be happy, Vitya. You don’t want to skate, you don’t have to skate. It’s always been your choice.”

“But.”

“You’re going to quit skating a thousand times in the future, but only you can make yourself skate. I’ve seen parents force your friends to skate. I’m not making you do something you don’t want to. Do you want to not skate anymore?”

“...not really,” Viktor whispered into his potatoes. Felt like a weight was lifted, then wolfed them down. “I want more sour cream.”

“I get paid in three days, Victor. We’ll buy some then.”

“But.”

“No. and the grocery store’s already closed.”

Great Aunt Vasilisa frowned at him. “When I was your age, we didn’t have sour cream. We had sawdust with our potatoes.”

“Sawdust?!” Victor laughed. “Did you cut off the bark off the wood like mama does with the potato skins?”

The woman startled at the joke. Dotya looked horrified, her fork dangling halfway to her mouth. Great Aunt Vasilisia took ten seconds for herself, thinking it over. Started laughing. Dotya laughed a split second later. Both too hard with a slight twinge of sadness. Victor missed all of those unsaid emotions, and giggled along, his ears turning red, unable to stop until he was breathless.

Aunt Vasilisa finally started taper off herself, blowing her nose as Dotya putting a hand on her arm. “He’ll know our history. We won’t hide it. He’ll know how you survived,” she explained. “But we won’t scare him with it. He’s smart, if a little flighty. But we’ll make it work. You’re free to be open too. You can be free with him as well. Just… we’ll find a balance. And you’ll find a way too.”

As his mother and aunt talked about things he didn’t understand, Victor picked around his lima beans. Hunger won out, and he finished his dinner. He sat back, sticking out his stomach comically. “Too full for sour cream now,” still disappointed and lying just a touch about being too full for sour cream.

Dotya smiled, then sniffed a bit. “Do you smell that?”

 

“No, what?” Victor asked, trying to sniff the air.

“I think it’s a skunk!”

“What’s that?”

“A smelly animal. Very smelly. WIth a tail that shoots stinky odors!”

Victor’s jaw dropped. “It shoots?? Like a gun??”

“Yes. No wait. I’m wrong.”

“It doesn’t shoot like a gun?”

“No, it’s not a skunk! It’s not a skunk! But it’s smelly!”

“What is it?”

“A little boy who needs a bath!”

“...Nooooooo!!!!” Victor yelped as his mother threw him up into her arms.

“And your hair is going to get washed too!!!!”

“NNOOOO!!!OOO!!!!!!!” Victor screeched loudly, protecting his grey hair with his hands.

“Then it’s bedtime. You’ve got practice in the morning. 5 AM wake up again.”

“I quit. I told you.” Victor avowed.

“Sure, Munchkin. You told me. I believe you.” Dotya agreed, carrying him upside down out to the bathroom. “Look, you’ve got twenty minutes for hot water. Unless you like ice cold baths.”

“Could I skate on it?”

“No such luck. All our lives would be easier if you could just practice in our tub. And brush your hair and your teeth.”

“Okay,” Victor mumbled, thought back from across his day. “Mama, am I an old man?”

“What?”

“Minya said only old men have grey hair. He’s my friend, but I didn’t like it.”

“You’ve got perfect hair. It makes you special. Everyone’s got regular hair. Some people don’t even have hair on their hair. Mr. Alexiandrovitch the grocer doesn’t have hair on his head except in his ears! Even Minya has red hair like everyone else. But you? People will always remember you. A little boy with grey hair and aqua blue eyes. You’re not an old man. You’re a little boy. You’ll always be my special little boy with special grey hair.” Victor calmed down, snuggled into his mother as he was carried him out into the hallway to the bathroom.

“I’m still quitting ice skating.”

\--

Victor woke up at 445 AM, begging to go to the rink. Dotya rolled away from him, groaning loudly. “You promised me you were quitting.”

His chin quivered, lower lip sticking out at the memory. “I didn’t mean it.”

“I know. You lied.”

“No, I wanted to quit then. But now I don’t. I really like skating.”

Dotya dragged herself up, looked over her son. His t-shirt was inside out. His sweater buttoned off. Shoes tied, and pants pulled up, but unsnapped.

“Looks a bit right, but your clothes are off a little. Fix your shirt, and then we’ll go.”

\--

Victor sat on the exercise pad in the warm up room, waiting his turn.  
His best friend was on the ground, crying in pain as the adult coach continued to push his legs back.. Five other boys huddled off to the side, recovering from their own contorted pain. Finally, the coach let up from Minya’s legs, and put the boy onto his feet. “You’re just lucky you’re double jointed, Mikhail. All these tears from a double jointed kid,” the man shook his head, then looked over at Victor.

“I’m next?” Victor asked.

The coach shrugged. “You’re up, Kid.”

“And this will make me a better skater?”

“Contrary to popular belief, I don’t like hurting little kids.” the man replied.

“What does that mean, Coach Wilhelm?”

“It means you’re holding up skate practice by stalling.”

Victor went quiet, laid down in front of the man, lifted his legs into the starting position. His coach put his hands on the boy’s calves and hips, pulled up slowly, hyper flexing the thighs and knees.

Victor gasped hard, then looked into the man’s eyes, calming himself against the pain.

“Did you just nod?” Wilhelm asked.

“Yes, Coach. This makes me a better skater. I won’t cry.”

“Okay,” the man drawled slowly, had never dealt with a child who consented to the stretches in such a way. Most would cry or get angry, but go with it ultimately. That was expected, and had been done for decades of Soviet training for figure skaters and gymnasts. None of them had ever accepted it, himself included. But a six year old agreeing to flex training. It unnerved him. “Just...tell me if you feel real pain. I mean, before something pops or cracks.” Let go of the boy, and stretched him gently to relieve the pressure.

“If Victor ignores the pain, then I will too!” Minya interjected loudly.

“Great,” Wilhelm said. “Same thing for you, I guess. Just tell me if you start feeling real pain.”

 

\---

 

 


	7. 1996

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I flipped 1996 and 1997 chapters due to work in the Winter Olympics. Sorry for any confusion.

1996

 

Practice was cancelled.

The boys were all huddled together in their sleeping bags and camp rolls on the rink’s floor. “Before the big event tonight, we’re going to watch the evolution of men’s figure skating- some of whom are in attendance.” Coach Wilhelm droned in his German accent, threading an ancient projector with 8mm film as he talked. “Russia has dominated figure skating since the 1950s, and you all are our future in maintaining our collective success.” 

Two older students struggled to attach a bed sheet against the back wall as a third wheeled out a record player and speakers. It took another ten minutes to get the whole apparatus to work, then another five to perfectly sync film to the music record. “This movie is the culmination of our best Olympic performances- Petrenko, Urmanov, Kovalev, Chetverukhin, Ivanova, Gorelik and Zhuk. As well as many others. I suggest you ask our honored guests tonight for advice or tips on how to improve as skaters.”

By then, what little interest the boys had in watching former Soviet skaters dominating figure skating since the 1950s had dropped to none. They were all restless from their day off and over-sugared on candy, already half-heartedly wanting to watch the men’s figure skating for the Winter Olympics.

Viktor ignored his fellow mob members, trying to pay attention at first, but grew bored at weak jumps and spins that he could already do, concentration drifting away.

Got flipped upside down, yelling up into the roof’s rafters. Flipped again as Mikhail jumped on him, taking on the whole group in a fake wrestling jump. All of the boys were against each other, alliances forming and dissolving as they fake punched, kicked, head butted, and flopped against each other. Viktor’s wrist flung out wildly, hit a boy’s shoulder, then bounced against a chin. Nothing really hurt or was overly aggressive as the fight continued.

Wilhelm jumped into the fray, picked up a boy by his knee, another by the elbow, trying to break up the fray. Other coaches helped up, splitting up groups into individuals until they started to settle back down. A freak elbow flew high and hard, careening directly against Viktor’s eye.

He screeched loudly in high soprano, dead stopping the fight.

“I’m sorry!” Mikhail yelled, lunging at Viktor’s chest in a tight hug, knocking them both down, jostling the boy’s head against the floor.

Viktor kept screeched again, his eye already swelling black and yellow as he was and pulled up from the ground, and carried by a man away from the others. He couldn’t quite focus, lulled in the man’s arms as they entered a back room.

“Boys,” his savior groaned, sitting Viktor onto a table. 

Viktor fought against the pain, his crying softening into hiccuping weeping.

“Not a cryer, are you?” the man said, cupping the boy in his hands, turning his face into a light. “That’s good.” Gently prodded the black eyes, the facial bones around his eye socket. “This sport doesn’t handle tears well. What’s your name?”

“Viktor Nikiforov.” he answered quietly.

“Good, strong name-”

“You need any help?” another man interrupted from the door.

“Yeah, go get us some ice in a washcloth. Nothing’s broken. No concussion. He’s just got a nice shiner.” the two watched the man leave. The man sat down in a chair, waiting. “Now hockey players? They cry all the damn time. Not even from pain either. Lose a game? They cry like American girls. Big, hulking bears of men with just tears dripping down their uniforms. And the crowds love them for it. All those sappy emotions.”

“But ice skaters? We are the true warriors. No pads. No helmets. Nothing. And you have to perform at the same time even when you’ve got bleeding toes and your best girl or boy just left you the day before. Judges want to feel your pain and hurt, they just don’t want to actually see it.” The man stopped, watching Viktor watch him with large eyes. “Yeah, I talk too much-”

“Sorry, but there’s no ice.” the man interrupted again. 

The man sighed, pinched his nose, winked at Viktor from behind his hands. “There are several metric tons of ice in this building. We have a multi-million dollar investment in this place to make ice and only make ice,” he growled.

Got a blank look in return.

“Go outside and fill a washcloth full of snow. White snow.”  
Viktor giggled.

“So you’re a skater, kid?”

“Yes,” Viktor replied. “Did you skate?”

The man started, smiled. “A little. Here and there. I mean, I was. No more Olympics for me, but I still got some moves... I’m a doctor now, so you really lucked out tonight. You any good, Kid?”

“I’m okay.” the boy shrugged.

“Yeah? So are you a mouse or a rat?”

I don’t… know?”

“Huh. Things have changed since I was a kid. Are you in the M-Class or the R-Class?”

“M-2 class. About to start M-3.”

“And you’re how old?!”

“I’m about to turn nine, but I’m eight and a half, Sir.”

“Huh….. 2006 and 2010 might be an interesting time for you.”

The coach finally returned with a bucket of snow. The doctor threw another tantrum as the man left. Pulled out a rubber glove, filled it full of snow, and plopped it against the boy’s eye. “One last thing before we head back- skating’s going to break your heart. Make sure you have a life afterwards. I got a full set of medals at nineteen and was washed by twenty-three. I got lucky with my schooling, but a lot of my friends couldn’t adjust. This sport is greedy and will take everything you give it.”

“Mom says something like that.”

“Good. Listen to her. Hey, now how about you show me what you can do.”

“On the ice?”

“Lace up, Kid. Show me what you can do. No showing off.”

Viktor ran from the room, his skates on and half done, waiting for the man to limp back to the rink. He did a few warm up stretches, a few laps, then began some basic turns and spins, noticed a few others watching him. He started small then on a program, his head still slightly pinging from the hit, but ignoring his slight off-ness. Added some speed, did a sit spin. Then stopped. Grinned at his audience. Took off hard, ice exploding hard as he sped down the rink hard backwards, jumped from the inside of his foot, spun twice, and landed on both feet. Slid to a stop, and approached the group.

“Stupid kid!” The doctor spat at him. “Little mice turning into limping rats when they don’t know their limitations,” he yelled angrily, all but hauling Viktor off the ice.

“Be kind, Jacob,” another guest smiled gently. “We were all nine and wanted to conquer the world-”

“He’s seven.” Jacob snapped back. “He’s not physically ready for that level of stress on his joints.”

“What does that mean?” Viktor frowned.

“If means if you’re going to kill your career at fifteen just to show off at seven. Obviously, you don’t need a rat cage to learn how to jump, but you jump when your coaches tell you you can. Not because you can now. This goes back to your life after skating. You have to protect yourself. Sometimes even from yourself. Stay on the track line and push yourself gently. Get the basics down solid and build on them. That was a sloppy jump, because your ankles can’t handle that much stress. One bad fall, and you’ll be on crutches for months. You’re too talented to destroy your career now.”

“So no jumps at all?”

“No doubles for at least eighteen more months. Triples when your coach says you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now.”

The doctor peered down at him, fighting a grin. “Twenty years from now. You’ll find me in some hospital and send me a dozen roses- red- for saving your ankles today.”


	8. 1997

1997

Viktor was exhausted. Early morning practices melded with school, and he soon barely remembered life before skating.

The seven year old woke up twenty minutes earlier than his normal time. Clicked on a small desk lamp by his couch, and looked over his math homework. He’d forgotten about it the night before, and math wasn’t something he could just answer on the way to school. 

He finished three questions, then watched the equations start to skate and pirouette around the page. Frowning hard, he gave up and wrote in random numbers Finishing the worksheet, he closed his eyes, and snuck in another ten minutes of sleep.

\--

Viktor looked down at the dinner table, avoiding the food inches from his face.

Great Aunt Vasilisa had made her own favorite dinner- chicken with beets and crusty rye bread. Viktor never enjoyed eating it, and even his mother was under enthused about it. But he was always hungry enough to not be picky. His life revolved around calories, constantly feeding the beast that was his appetite. The boy stared off into space, unfocusing from the lumpy vegetables, trying to make a decision as his mother and great aunt chattered away into silence.

“What?”

He looked up, tearing away from his hunger.

“Eat, Vitya,” Dotya said around a mouthful of red vegetables. “You get cranky when you don’t.”

“Mmm… not hungry.” Put his fork down, hands into his lap. This was a good meal to skip.

“Viktor Nikiforov, you eat your dinner,” Great Aunt Vasilisa hissed, prodding fork tines towards him.

He decided. “I… have to lose two kilograms.”

His mother choked, coughing up phlegmatic beets onto her plate. “What the-?! You’re. What? Who told you that?” Great Aunt Vasilisa rubbed her niece’s arm as she coughed up food not quite lodged in her throat.

“No one.”

Dotya glared at him, pinning her son low in his seat.“Viktor, you don’t even know what a kilogram means. I’ve seen your homework. Half of your answers are just made up numbers. Which, by, the way, you are totally grounded until your grades come up. But you understand this, Viktor Constantinovich NIkiforov. You are not losing weight- not even one goddamn gram. Ever. Now tell me which goddamn coach told you to lose weight.“

“Coach Herrmann.” he murmured finally. “He said I was three kilograms over for my height, and-”

“You sit there and you eat until you’re full. No more, no less. Our family did not just starve for eighty years for some pissant German douchebag ordering my son to lose weight! Especially for the goddamn Figure Skating Federation of Russia.”

Viktor’s stomach churned, his mouth acrid. He forced another bite, chewed on the left side of his mouth then the right, forgot how to swallow.

“Viktor…. I”m not mad at you,” he finally heard. “You’re the great love of my life. No one will take that from you. But, as your parent, my decisions will always come first. School is important, and so is eating. Do you understand?”

“...”

“Well?”

“I”m.. thinking,” he finally breathed out. “It’s a big decision.”

“Okay. Well, think about this,” Dotya mulled, making sure her son followed along. “You stop eating and lose three kilograms, then yes. That’s your decision. But, as your mother, my decision will be to pull you from skating-”

“WHAT THE FUCK, MOM??” He yelled, slapped his hands over his mouth.

Jaws dropped. His chin snapped shut loudly, clacking baby teeth against new incisors. 

“I’m… going to do the dishes,” Great Aunt Vasilisa’s survivor instincts kicked in, escaping to the kitchenette with the plates, abandoning her grand nephew to the oncoming firestorm.

The boy was going to die. 

Like a clockwork child, he picked up dishes every single night and took them to the sink- his one permanent chore. He couldn’t not just pick up everyone’s dishes and cups after dinner. Even eating with Mikhail’s family had him helping with dishes, leaving their family amazed and slightly appalled at his overstep as as guest.

His great aunt volunteering for the job now left him defenseless. He couldn’t even escape through being especially helpful with extra chores. Seconds stroked into minutes, waiting for his mother to explode like a German bomb.

Instead she went cool, and retrieved Viktor’s unfinished meal. He sat there as she gently placed the food before him, beckoned him to continue eating.

His hunger roared back, wolfing down massive chunks then nibbling toddler-sized bits. Time and food passed until one only chicken piece stood between him and his mother’s rage. He couldn’t eat it.

“Are you done?”

Viktor nodded.

They both heard Great Aunt Vasilisa clucking in the bedroom. For once in his life, he finally cared what the older woman was doing, honing in on her reality as he tried to disappear from his own.

“Now then,” Dotya paused. “You’re seven years old now. So I guess you’ve known that word since probably preschool. We will let this one go. Next time, however, your mouth will be washed out out with soap, and there might even be a full on paddling with my hairbrush. 

“But the real point is this: if you do not take care of yourself, then I will make sure you do. That includes eating, bathing, school work, everything. If you or your coaches pull this bullshit again, you will stop skating. You’re too good for them to bench you over your weight and everyone knows it. You’re better than some nine year old kids. Everyone knows it, but your coaches will only put that much more pressure on you.

“I’ve raised you to make your own decisions, but you’re old enough to understand consequences. The coaches want you to succeed at skating, but they don’t care about your safety and happiness. Things have changed since you were born, but changing the Figure Skating Federation of the USSR to the Figure Skating Federation of Russia doesn’t mean that how they treat their skaters. They are all still the same coaches, methods, and politics. All that changed is that now you and I both have says in your treatment and future.

“Viktor, I am teaching you that you can make your own choices. Some of your friends’ parents let the skating program get away with absolute murder and that scares me. You have a life outside of skating, and it is my duty to make sure you are healthy. I will be your mother far longer than you have your skating career, Victor, whether you quit tomorrow or in twenty years. I can barely afford to feed you, and that’s a good thing. Your hunger is only going to get worse the older you get, and that’s a good thing too. It means you’re growing, and growing boys who ice skate always need to eat lots of food. Do you understand?”

Viktor almost nodded, but not really. Everything became too much. All of his secrets and worries stripped bare before his irate mother. His stomach lurched. “I don’t-” he gasped, vomited all over himself before he could react. Grew embarrassed at his mess and that wet, self conscious feeling of being so vulnerably sick. He was done. Went limp and slid back against the table chair, unable to process anymore.

Sighing, Dotya got up and hefted her son’s dead weight up into her arms. Waved Great Aunt Vasilisa to put the tea kettle on as she took him out to the bathroom. Her own shirt getting soaked from little boy sick and sweat. She was long inured to his body fluids, tried to think back to the last time he needed her in quite that manner. He was so independent and single-minded in such a flaky way that his own inadequacies coalesced and made him stronger for them. He had grown with physical brilliance and gentle intelligence, often leaving his mother both exhausted in staying ahead of him as a mother and slightly hands-off as a parent. 

But Viktor was still a seven year old boy who never showed stress right up until he shattered. Her own fears grew- knowing that he could endure almost everything, but had developed bad coping skills. At her most selfish core, she wanted him to be unextraordinary. To live safely in the poverty of mediocrity and without notice. But such views were both prideful and lazy. She would always protect and encourage him, but she would only do so under her own terms.

Entering the bathroom, they sat the rim of the tub, stripping off their shirts. Dotya ruminating almost nostalgically that her so very old child needed her as a baby needed a mother.

Great Aunt Vasilisa followed with the tea kettle with a great pile of clean washcloths and a shirt for her niece. Quietly checked them both over as she poured the hot water into the stoppered sink. then crept away from their needs of togetherness.

Dotya let the towels soak up the water as she held her son, then run out a towel with her left hand, and started wiping down Viktor’s face, shoulders, and chest. Repeating the action softly as he grew drowsy under her caress. 

The boy was more than capable of bathing himself, even starting to grow embarrassed when seen without a shirt, but Viktor had withdrawn and regressed from lack of understanding, from being overwhelmed with too much information

His limbs were heavy and graceless as she lifted his arms and neck, cleaning his whole body without protest. Left him sitting on the tub’s edge as she took off her own shirt and washed herself down with a new cloth.

Finally clean, she carried him back to their apartment, dropped the vomit stained towels into the wash bucket, and slipped her own beloved Kino band t-shirt onto his tiny frame. She laid down in her bed with Viktor, placing his head over her chest, lulling him to sleep with her stoma heartbeat as they drifted off together.


	9. 2001- The Beast of Leningrad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm jumping a number of years for reasons. These missing years will be backfilled. They are written, but this chapter got typed out first.

  
  
Yakov Feltsman had seen no fewer than two men be horribly scalded by the Beast of Leningrad. He had his own second degree burns on his left upper arm and had been pinched several times from fighting the devil's own hellspawn that was the ice refrigeration system in the dank dungeon of the practice ice rink.   
  
The Yubileyny Sports Palace was the jewel of Leningrad's ice sports community. It had created world class hockey players and skating superstars since it opened in the 1960s. Officially, Yakov's stable of figure skaters was connected with Yubileyny, but unofficially, he had them work at the practice rink more. There was less competition against other skaters and the hockey team. He even had to fight ice time against the local basketball team players when the arena was de-iced and converted into a basketball court.    
  
Yakov hated basketball.   
  
Choosing quantity over quality, he had shifted his base of operations to the practice rink years prior. A more prominent coach could have poached it out from under him, but he'd outmaneuvered enough Russian Federation members that few others would actively fight him in his own fiefdom. He kept the Beast sated and running, and he got his less-than-prime location in kind.   
  
Yakov ran his rink on what he grew up with: no one was special, everyone had to help out no matter the job. Everyone filled in chipped out holes with shaved balls of ice daily. Everyone Zamboni'd it on a weekly rotation. He'd even made Viktor clean toilets at times until they could hire a janitor. The boy was not happy, but Viktor's emotional well-being was nothing compared to needing sterilized bathrooms.   
  
It was communism via ice skating at its best and worst. If one could skate gold medal routines on uneven, slurry ice, then they could win in the most elegant of rinks. Colorado Even Moscow was Dante's fifth level of Paradise compared to the Beast of Leningrad's mode of production. Its icing system was forty years old and refused to die.   
  
The Beast's predecessor had actually been an “upgrade” from the nameless, pre-World War 2 machine. That one spat out shitty, shaved ice for twenty years. Everyone used the slurry conditions as yet another training element to overcome; an attitude carried down through generations. Even the current crop of three and four year old skater wunderkinds all discussed bad ice conditions without knowing what it actually meant.   
  
That machine had  been cannibalized for parts during the war, then booby trapped against the German invasion. The Nazis had puckered the arena's walls and ceiling with bullets and small shrapnel, but the Siege of Leningrad had failed, leaving the building mostly intact outside of the skating guard walls and rafters being cannibalized for wood during the long, starving winters.

  
The rink had been left to rot and moulder during the war years as most of the shelling had missed the building. Residents had tried to use it as shelter, but rancid pools of brackish water in the skating area left it smelling foul and full of lethal mosquitoes in the summers and dangerous ice with subarctic temperatures during the winters. It was quickly abandoned.   
  
Once the Siege of Leningrad had failed, the city was cleaned up, fed, and returned to the smallest amount of normalcy. Years after that, the citizens returned to the ice rink. It was still (surprisingly) structurally sound even using the Leningrad-low standards of what they considered “Structurally Sound.”    
  
But the holes and ricochet damage was obvious. It was cheap to fix, but even cheaper just to hang patriotic flags and pictures. The tarry water was drained (only one skeleton was found, liquifying in the flooded basement), fixed, and filled with gallons of undiluted bleach. Everything else was to be “fixed later,” but the flags and pictures had worked too well and the damage was forgotten.   
  
In 1991, the sickle and hammer flags were toppled and replaced. The Beast of Leningrad survived the political coup, even keeping its own name as the rest of the city was rechristened back to St. Petersburg.   
  
The damage was rediscovered, but the building was still in decent shape. The rink's administrators simply ordered even larger Russian Federation flags to be raised with every intent to “fix the damage later.” That had been over ten years ago.    
  
Current politic foment was to enshrine the pock marks with nostalgia and to openly display the holes and shelling as a testament to Russian fortitude. Yakov needed a new ice machine more than he needed new walls, but knew neither were going to happen. It was finally and quietly decided to avoid any political statements or displays by keeping the flags up. It was best of both the Russian and the Soviet methods.   
  
Feltsman, last of the Old Guard, was stuck as the Beast of Leningrad's caretaker. He knew the its temperament and its secrets- how to woo the machine in April with new oil and replace old cogs and gears to make it run another year. It was supposed to be replaced in 1989 (the funds had gone... somewhere), but history had deprived him of decent ice yet again.   
  
Never a man of deep ruminations over Russia's past, Yakov sat next to his wife in a hair salon and day spa, wanting more than anything to seduce the Beast of Leningrad and fill in German bullet holes with cheap Spackle.   
  
“How much more time?” he whined, head looking straight ahead without seeing anything.   
  
“Ten more minutes. Maybe.” Lilia replied acidly from her stool, her nails being French tipped by a North Korean-Uzbek nail technician.   
  
“Why am I here?”   
  
“Because you are a good Russian who knows how to take orders.”   
  
Yakov growled.   
  
“Do not backtalk,” she snapped back.   
  
“I do not need to be here waiting for Viktor Nikiforov to be pampered like an oligarch's brainless daughter.”   
  
“I am not going to insult you by explaining why you are here. If you are that bored, you also could always have your nails done.” Lilia, love of Yakov's life, replied archly.   
  
The man huffed off, hadn't had them professionally done since his last performance as a skater. He wasn't sure why he'd bothered with even that bare minimum nail cut and cuticle clean up- that had been during that shadowy part of his life where he was burning out on skating itself, stuck without long term job prospects, and “coaching” was the safe career shift that he wasn't quite sure he wanted.    
  
He dozed a bit as women chittered around them with their hair being cut and toes pedicured. Viktor was off in a backroom somewhere, being personally tended to by the spa's best technicians with a complete makeover. Yakov was volunteered to accompany the boy to the day spa before his international debut as the future Hero of Russian Skating. Lilia was volunteered to make sure her husband went through with it.   
  
Yakov wanted to pound a nail into the wall with the back of his head.   
  
The two lapsed into another UN-mandated silence as Lilia's nails finished drying.   
  
The back door finally slammed open, Viktor sauntered out in an oversized robe, his hair twisted up into a towel. Yakov knew instantly something was off despite the boy trying to “sell” how wonderful the entire experience had been.   
  
“And they massaged my ankles! And my back! And I got pikc to my lotion's smell! Ooh, I love your nails. Can I get mine done like that?”   
  
Lilia looked down at hers, then the boy's. “Absolutely not.”    
  
Yakov knew that his wife was at times jealous of Viktor. It was ugly, but at least benign. It was always small things- like not wanting to have matching manicures. Viktor never caught on, but he never did with that sort of thing. Yakov let the woman indulge in her petulance up to a certain point.   
  
“What went wrong?” Lila alway went for the throat.   
  
Viktor paled. “Nothing, I swear. I had a great time! Listened to everyone, followed instructions.”   
  
Lila arched a thin eyebrow.   
  
Viktor pulled the towel from his head, shaking his long, grey hair hard like a dog. Noxious, odorous drops of water sprayed the two adults. They both shrunk back from the water bombing, could smell the foul stench of hair dye and bleach permeating their clothes and skin.   
  
“What happened to the honeysuckle golden blonde?!” Lila screeched, reached out, grabbed a tuft of his still wet hair. “It's supposed to be a blonde, not old man grey still!”   
  
“They said it didn't take,” Viktor explained. “They tried everything- even black and red dyes, just to make sure. The red made it a little green? I just... have grey hair.”   
  
Lila glared at him, willing the color to change. “Five hundred dollars for the best stylist in this town... We're not paying this failure. Perhaps a wig-”   
  
“No,” Yakov said slowly, shutting that possibility down. He was not going to be Viktor's future wig dresser, carrying around boxes with different colors through customs. He could just see the boy in bright neon color hair if they let him. He was not going to let him.   
  
“We'll make do. The color is eye catching and he'll be remembered for it. The skating infant with grey hair. The commentators will love it. It gives them that human interest aspect- that we're not changing his hair to overcome a potential deficiency. The federation won't like it, but nothing to be done.”   
  
“Great! Now I can grow it out!”   
  
“You are not growing it out,” Yakov mandated.   
  
Viktor grinned. “It'll be amazing! Like Kristi Yamaguchi. I love her hair. It just goes everywhere when she skates. Like it's skating too! I can style it every which way.”   
  
Yakov frowned, his forehead and ears frowned. Half of the performance element was presentation, and neither the Soviets nor the Russians settled for unkempt hair when showcasing geopolitical power and domination to the entire world. “That's not how Russians skate.”   
  
“Well, I'm not getting Plushnko's mullet. Yuck,” Viktor pulled a face, then grinned. There were big plans for his future.   



End file.
